Pale of Settlement

The Pale of Settlement was a designated region of the Russian Empire where Jews were forced to live; they could not live beyond its borders such as in the capital of Moscow. Several cities within the Pale of Settlement even refused to allow Jews to live there, leading to some Jewish cities being formed, including Bialystok, Wilna, Grodno, and Plock. It encompassed Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine, Lithuania, parts of western Russia, and the Crimea. After the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, the Pale of Settlement ceased to exist, and many of the Jews that experienced pogroms under both the Russian Empire and Soviet Union decided to leave Eastern Europe during the rest of the 20th century, going to either the United States or Israel.